[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 4 (Friday, January 28, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: January 28, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
       COMMEMORATING THE MARCH OF THE LIVING EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM

 Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to the March 
of the Living Educational Program. The Holocaust of 1933-45 was a most 
tragic episode in human history, one of the likes of which we must 
never allow to recur.
  Milions perished in the Holocaust; millions of others were never the 
same afterward.
  Tens of thousands of American citizens experienced the suffering of 
the Holocaust first hand, and countless more Americans suffered the 
loss of loved ones in the Holocaust.
  Millions of American troops fought against the evil perpetrators of 
the Holocaust, and the American troops who liberated the concentration 
camps witnessed first hand the horrors of the Holocaust.
  Despite all this, there are voices, ominous by their growth, still 
over 40 years after the fact that claim that the Holocaust never 
occurred.
  Against this background stands the March of the Living, a unique 
program of Holocaust education, a program that dramatically refute the 
lie that the Holocaust never happened, a program that educates the 
young to insure that the lessons of the Holocaust are carried into the 
future, and a program that helps insure that the world will never again 
display the indifference to human suffering that marked the Holocaust.
  Since 1988, the March of the Living has taken thousands of teenagers 
from around the world to view the death camps that have become 
synonymous with the Holocaust--Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Treblinka.
  Through the March of the Living, thousands of young adults from 
Brooklyn to Buffalo in my own State, from Maine to California, from 
Europe to Australia to South America, have seen the barbed-wire fences, 
the gas chambers and the crematoria.
  Through the March of the Living, thousands of teenagers have walked 
the same 3 kilometers from Auschwitz to Birkenau that the Holocaust 
victims walked to their deaths. They will never forget the Honocaust, 
nor will they tolerate the lie that the Holocaust never happened. These 
teenagers will help insure that nothing of the kind ever happens again.
  These teenagers, after visiting the death camps of Poland, will visit 
the State of Israel, a nation that rose from the ashes of the 
Holocaust, a nation that stands tall as an oasis of democracy in its 
region, and a nation committed to seeing that there will never be 
another Holocaust. These teenagers will learn from Israel how the human 
spirit can triumph over the most terrible adversity.
  For this unique contribution to Holocaust education and to world 
education, I salute the March of the Living, and I urge all citizens of 
the United States to support this most noble educational 
effort.

                          ____________________